


After All You've Done, May ye Rest

by BookLoverStoryWriter



Category: Supernatural, Supernatural (TV)
Genre: (sarcasm), Dean Has Issues, Dean has had a fucked up life, Dean is Bad at Feelings, Dean will always love Sammy, Dean-Centric, Gen, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Kind of a character study, Pre-Series, Young Dean, deanmon, kinda a story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-22 19:02:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11386437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BookLoverStoryWriter/pseuds/BookLoverStoryWriter
Summary: Dean grew up as soon as his father put Sammy in his arms and shouted 'run!' But when the burden is too heavy to carry, and when the load on your back breaks you down; if all you've ever known is darkness. Can you really be blamed when darkness is what you become?Dean wouldn’t speak after his mother died. Not for a long while. He knew if he did he wouldn’t control the things that came out of his mouth. But late at night, after Daddy had gone to sleep, in seedy motel rooms and dirty beds. He would sing to baby Sammy as he was tucked under his chin. Rehearsed words and melody, so familiar after four years of going to bed with the tune in his ear“Hey JudeDon’t make it badTake a sad song and make it better….”Darkness was always something Dean feared, he grew to love it. To use it, to hunt the things in it.Until darkness he became.-And then Dean woke. And his eyes were black.





	After All You've Done, May ye Rest

“Everyone is a moon and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody”- Mark Twain  
-  
To watch the darkness hadn't always been a pleasure.

It had always been around him for as long as he could remember. As a child, it lurked in the corners of his house. It crept along the sides of the walls and hid under the bed and in the closets. He had feared it then. He had feared the unknown and the shadows. The fear was instinctual, as it would be to any child. His father tried to reassure him. To tell Dean that the dark wasn’t real, and nothing was there to be afraid of.

Dean’s mother was different though. She never told Dean not to be afraid. Never told him that the dark was anything to be scared of. Mary simply held Dean, and told him she would save him always.

She lied.  
-  
Dean grew up quickly, he learned to walk and talk before most other children, and was quick to adapt. But he was restless, he never did anything intentionally, he was always so wound up and tense, even as a newborn. For the first few years of his life, Dean was reckless and didn’t understand consequences. He had no sense of danger and didn’t seem to understand ‘no’.

Mary found him once, 2 years old at the time, Dean was sat in front of the fire place, light burns were across his fingers. He was reaching towards the flames. She was terrified, and quickly grabbed him away as all Dean did was stare at his reddened fingertips.

Dean’s early years were dark, unguided, without purpose.  
Until a light was born.  
-  
Dean didn't really remember much about Sammy's birth. He was barely 4, and didn't really understand what was happening other than that he was getting a baby brother. That day he played with matchbox cars and blocks, he talked with a sweet little lady, and accidentally broke a flower vase. Little siblings weren't exactly the first thing on his mind. It was three days later that Dean first saw Sam. Saw small eyes that were so blue, and a little nose. Hands wrapped in fists, and soft, downy hair on his head. Dean fell in love immediately. He felt peace and direction. A purpose. And so, he fell in love with a new light in the dark.

But once Sammy came home, Dean noticed the little baby's gurgles and laughter ceased as the door closed behind them when the family left the nursery. And as all children are, Dean was curious. Dean didn't go back immediately, he waited until mommy and daddy had settled down for the night, settled into bed and gone to sleep. Then he crept into little Sammy's room; as he opened the door, a small light peered into the dark and Dean took a step into the nursery. He noticed baby Sam's eyes open wide with terror at the shadows, his tiny lips closed, but quivering.  
Dean knew then that this was his job. He was big brother and big brothers didn't let anything scare their siblings. Didn't let anything hurt them. Dean was still scared of the dark, but he would fight it for Sammy. He would be brave.

That night he held Sam's clenched fist through the bars and stayed that way the rest of the night.  
When Mary and John found them, they thought it was just sibling love, and childlike curiosity. But they could never fully understand.  
-  
Then Dean watched as his mother burned on the ceiling. He saw the blood staining her skin and the fire consume his mommy's flesh and bone. He wished more than anything that the darkness would return, that shadows would consume the room and that the fire would end. The light of flames would stain his memory forever.  
But then Daddy handed Dean his little brother and shouts "Take your brother outside as fast as you can and don't look back! Now, Dean! GO!" Then Dean remembered that he had to protect Sammy. He was the big brother and he couldn't be scared. He couldn't cry or be sad, because he had a job. He had to protect the light from the dark. Protect Sammy.

He ran, he ran as he watched the flames consume their home and the sparks of hot light up the night. He held Sam close, stone faced as the flames devoured, the sight reflecting in his eyes. He would've rather faced the dark.  
-  
The roar of the fire stayed in Dean's memory forever. And he knew if he ever opened his mouth, he would scream. Scream with the pain of someone who had seen the death of a parent, the fear of a child who had come face to face with death. He knew if he allowed his lips to speak, he would break, and he wasn't allowed to break. So, he didn't; he didn't speak a single word. Not for a long time.  
-  
The shotgun rested in his seven-year-old hands, his arms shook under the weight, and the kick knocked him flat on his back. His muscles ached and his head was ringing with the sound echoing in his ears. His eyes looked upwards and he was glad Sam was still in the cabin.  
"Gotta hold it steady Dean." His expression was stoic and his eyes held no emotion. He helped Dean up and then called it done for that day. Dean cleaned up the practice range and then went inside to feed Sammy while Daddy-no, Dad went to research for a hunt.  
Later in the middle of the night while Sam was asleep and Dad was gone, he took out the gun and practiced.  
-  
"Dean!" Sam raced in and tackled Dean with all the weight of a seven-year-old 2nd grader. He then progressed to wave a sheet of paper in front of his face. "Look Dean, look!"  
Dean laughed and ran his fingers through the little tyke's hair in an attempt to calm him down; however, Sam's enthusiasm would not be denied. "Watcha got there?"

"All 'undreds Dea. All of 'em!"

As Dean looked at the piece of paper, he saw that it was a report card for the recent end of term. "Wow kiddo! Ya' did a great job," the smile on Dean's face was wide and cheerful as he praised his brother  
What was once childlike passion, turned into a bashful blush as the small child's cheeks flushed red at his older brother's praise.

"Only 'cuz you helped me with the math part. I thought that one was really hard."

If possible, Dean's smile grew larger. Glad to have been able to help his brother.  
Dean ran his fingers through the long hair again. "No problem Sammy, no problem at all."  
-  
You see people like Dean. They need to be needed. They survive through the survival of others.  
And siblings will always turn to each other when the thing that needs surviving is the parent.  
-  
Ghost, vampires, and devils don’t scare me.  
But a cruel heart, devoid of love and compassion  
is truly terrifying.  
The real monsters have always worn a human face.  
-John Mark Green  
-  
Dean was nine the first time it happened. Dad had finished up another hunt, when he got home. Dean already had Sammy fed and tucked in bed, and was cleaning up the lousy motel room when the smell of alcohol reached his nose. Its retched stench felt like poison. His eyes looked toward the now open door at his father.  
"What do you think you're doing kid?"  
Dean's eyes darted to the ground. "Just cleaning up before we leave in the morning."  
"You think you can replace her?" The voice wasn't quite a yell, but the forceful anger in it caused Dean's heart to pound in his chest. He kept silent, not knowing how to respond.

"Answer me, Boy!"  
Dean was young he didn't know what to say, he was hurt and confused as to why his dad had yelled at him. So, he didn't answer.  
Dad didn't intentionally hurt him, Dean didn't think. But when Dad gripped Dean's shoulder, and dug his fingers into Dean’s skin. It still hurt.  
-  
John loved Dean, and he loved Sam. But that doesn’t mean that he didn’t hurt them. That he didn’t leave them behind and it didn’t mean that no father should force a child to face the darkness.  
It wasn't the last time it happened, the verbal abuse continued, with the occasional rough handling. Never anything intentional, but it hurt nonetheless. While it may not have stopped, it ended with Dean. Dean made sure that through the years, Sam never faced their father's wrath, and never found out.  
-  
Sammy didn’t know about a lot of things as a kid. Dean made sure of that. He made sure that Sam didn’t know about the monsters in the closet, and Dean made sure that Sam didn’t pick up a gun as a child. Dean gave Sam everything he had and he gave him the things that Dean didn’t ever have. Including a childhood. Sam got to grow up on his own schedule.  
-  
Dean grew up quickly. He was older than most adults the day his dad gave him Sammy to look after. Dean didn’t have a dad. He raised himself and his little brother from the time he was five. But growing up like that leaves burden and hurt that stays with you. And as a child it hurts, because you love so easily and deeply. But every time you love the pain just continues to dig at your soul, until it kills you.

Dean learned quickly that loving only hurt. So he stopped.  
Except he always loved Sam. Even when Sam tore at his heart, he loved him.  
-  
Dean didn’t want this life for himself. But he knew that the Dark had to be contained. So he hunts down monsters and protects the ignorant. He didn’t want it, but it was his. But it didn’t have to be Sammy’s.  
He brought the weight of the world on his shoulders, and fought against the dark so that Sammy wouldn’t need too.  
-  
Sam may not have known it, but Dean was so damn proud when he went off to college. He revved up the Impala while Sam and John were arguing and packed Sam’s bags in the back before going back inside, to drag his brother away from his father and drive him to his new beginning.  
And Dean may have been proud, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t the worst night of his life.  
And it didn’t mean it didn’t hurt like hell.  
-  
As John, (not daddy, not dad, just John) moved them from town to town, Dean did his best to provide for Sammy. Both physically and emotionally. He taught Sam but never by example. When food was short, he’d be the first to say “not hungry today, kiddo. You eat.” And when Sam needed a shoulder to cry on, Dean always wrapped his little brother in his arms and hold him. But he never did cry himself.  
Because he knew if he cried he might never stop.  
-  
Dean was born to feel  
He was born one of those humans who felt so much compassion it hurt.  
But in his life emotions were weakness. So he built walls  
Never let himself get close. To anyone.  
No one except Sammy.  
-  
Some may call it unhealthy, Dean’s dependence on taking care Sam.  
In reality, Dean loved his brother so much, that he was selfish enough to use that love as an anchor to keep him sane. Or, at least as sane as a Winchester could be.  
-  
“DEAN!”  
He bolted out of bed and raced across the room, grabbing onto Sam’s hand and pulling his shaking body to his. Sam’s shallow, and quickening breaths turned deep and Dean sat behind him on the pillow, clutching his brother’s chest and stroking his hair. The nightmare subsided, and Sam once again drifted off to sleep.  
Tears welled up in Dean’s eyes. He loved this damn boy so much it was going to kill him.  
-  
It doesn’t matter if that moment was when they were kids, or adults. Post-apocalypse or the day before Sam left for Stanford. Because Dean will always hold his brother.  
-  
Dean wouldn’t speak after his mother died. Not for a long while. He knew if he did he wouldn’t control the things that came out of his mouth. But late at night, after Daddy had gone to sleep, in seedy motel rooms and dirty beds. He would sing to baby Sammy as he was tucked under his chin. Rehearsed words and melody, so familiar after four years of going to bed with the tune in his ear.

“Hey Jude  
Don’t make it bad  
Take a sad song and make it better….”  
-  
Dean hates himself for a lot of reasons. But the biggest is all the harm he’s done to Sam. Intentional or not.

He hates his cruel words thrown in heated arguments.

He hates his inability to be a better brother -- father to Sam as a child.

He hates his pride and how emotionally blocked off from his brother that he can’t even fucking apologize.

He hates that he dragged Sam back into the hunt when he was off at Stanford.

He hates that his little brother. His Sammy. Went to Hell with Lucifer because he broke the damn First Seal.

Because he stepped off that rack.

 

So yeah, Dean has a lot of reasons to hate himself.  
-  
“A Monster is a person who has stopped pretending” – Colson Whitehead  
-  
Dean doesn’t regret going to Hell. He is so damn glad that his Sam was safe. But he’s grateful his Dad was gone, already off In Heaven; and that he didn’t have to face his father in his demon welcoming committee.  
-  
Dean loved his dad. Which made every small betrayal, every unanswered phone call, every abandoned motel room hurt so much more.  
It’s easy to hate. But it hurts like shit when the person you hate is also the person you love most in this world. Well, other than Sammy of course.  
-  
Darkness was always something Dean feared, he grew to love it. To use it, to hunt the things in it.  
Until darkness he became.  
-  
And then Dean woke. And his eyes were black.  
-  
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.  
-Friedrich Nietzsche

**Author's Note:**

> I want it to be understood that Dean is compassionate. He is caring and honest, but he was put in a situation as a young child that really forced him to grow up quickly without being able to grow to the emotional level needed to be a functioning adult. He had so muck trauma, responsibility, and even abandonment as not only is his mother dead, but his dad is delving into a new world of paranormal that leaves Dean without a parent. And so these are somewhat headcannons of what Dean had to go through, but also connecting actions of the Dean we see in supernatural to how little we know of how he was raised. So I guess this is a character study, but also a look into the emotions of how Dean grew up.
> 
> I also want to mention that I don't think John was abusive in the normal way fics portray it. But I do think that at times he was callous, mean, and an alcoholic. And I believe that effected Dean and Sam, just as it would effect any child. I think he was neglectful both physically and emotionally. But I still think he loved his boys. I just think the way he loved them was a little misguided. I think in his effort to protect them by helping them protect themselves, he forced them to be more adult than a child should have to be.


End file.
